NGE: The Good Father
by irishman91
Summary: He could be brave, just this once.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter one: A man can be Brave.

==========#

_He wanted to run away._

_The sun was shining on the grave, little more than a white cross with her name and the dates of her birth and death._

_His wife was dead. Gone. Consumed by Unit-01 in an accident that wasn't really an accident at all, and Yui was dead and he didn't know what do do! He had no master plan, no cunning maneuver to escape the undeniable truth._

_Yui Ikari, the love of his life was dead, and she had left him and Shinji all by themselves._

_And goddamn it if he had any idea on how to comfort the boy. He himself had no idea on how to move on , let alone how to handle his grief racked son._

_He couldn't even cry, his life was in tatters and he hadn't even shed a tear yet._

_Shinji on the other hand didn't have the same problem. As they both stood before Her grave, Shinji let his tears flow freely, even as he tried in vain to chock them back. His hand was in his, so small and so warm, despairingly gripping it to try and draw strength from him,_

_But Gendo didn't have any to give._

_He had planned to call his Aunt and Uncle, so that they might take the boy, he was in no way fit to look after him, he went from suicidal despair, to mind numbing rage in a blink of an eye, all he would do was hurt his son, and he didn't want to do that._

_But another part of him didn't want to give up his son, he wanted to hold onto the last part of Yui, even as he knew how selfish it was, he just couldn't shake the feeling. Even if it was the worst thing he could do to the boy, better that he be sent away, away to his Aunt and Uncle who were kind and caring in a way that he never could be._

_But maybe... Maybe he could be brave, just this once... For Shinji's sake._

_As they both gazed at the last memorial Yui Ikari, Gendo made his choice._

_"Lets go home, Shinji" He said, Squeezing his son's hand gently._

======#

Maya was shaking in her boots.

She had come for a job interview in NERV, having decided that a job in one of forerunners in the science and technology was her dream career.

The thought of joining the people who had engineered the E-45 Wheat crop or R-19 Rice plant and the N2 Power Core, had sent her heart a flutter. All of these inventions had saved the world in one way or the other. The Rice Plant had saved China from starvation, the Wheat crop done the same for Europe and the US.

And the N2 Class reactor cores had given a world that was on the brink of reverting to the Dark Ages the power necessary to overcomes its wounds.

Maya, an avid student of the Sciences, had followed the efforts of the UN body with a near fanatical enthusiasm. NERV was seemingly everywhere; from creating crops and plants that helped to beat off starvation, to the liberation of Sweden and Finland from Nordic Imperium, NERV seemed to be the people at the forefront of the resurrection of the world.

So Maya had applied for a job straight out of University at NERV, and if she was completely honest, she expected to get a position, perhaps not a high level one, not working under the legendary Dr. Akgai straight away, but she was the best in her year at Tokyo-U in regards to Meta-Physical Biology and Theoretical Physics and Applied Bullshit Engineering.

The last one was real by the way; it was the name of the course that thought the art of creating large scale engineering such as the Pallet Rifle and the Dublin Space Tether.

So Maya had sent in her application and had in the space of a week had gotten her reply, they wanted to have an interview. She was ecstatic! Her dreams were coming through, everything that she had endured, the sexism and homophobia, the long nights of work and toll, all of that had finally payed off.

Until she read further into the letter and found out who in question was going to be conducting the interview.

It was going to be Commander Gendo Ikari.

She had damn near peed in her panties.

The Commander was both regarded as an international hero, having head up all of those operations and projects that gave NERV it's reputation, under his stern hand NERV had saved the world twice over.

He was also infamously demanding, workingthe men and women under his command to the figurative bone, and was regarded as one of the most intelligent and intimidating man in the service of UN.

So Maya was understandably terrified when she came to the NERV Geofront ( A sight that would haunt her with its beauty for a long time) and she was guided by the very pretty help desk clerk through the literal labyrinth that was NERV HQ and she brought to the Commander's office.

And she knew fear.

It was designed to be intimidating, Maya knew that by simply looking at the room. But the knowledge didn't offer her any real comfort. It was massive, situated at the top the Geofront pyramid; it looked out over the entire area, giving her an amazing view of the sprawling green that was the Geofront.

The ceiling and floor were made out of reflective black marble that gave seemed to stretch on forever, before coming to the Desk, with the Tree of Sephiroth glowing behind it, casting the room in long shadows, and the man who sat behind in darkness, only his silhouette visible.

Making her way further into the room, Maya felt her discomfort grow. She was going to meet up with the Supreme Commander of NERV! If she blew this is was doomed.

Now more nervous than ever, Maya made her across the rest of the floor and stood just in front of the desk, where the commander was sitting.

"Please, take a seat" He said politely, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk.

Doing just that, Maya nervously sat down in the deliberate slightly uncomfortable chair, it was slightly too small, by a bout an inch or two, and it pinched her sides slightly, which over an extended period could drive a man insane, and took in the sight of her potential boss.

He wore the NERV officer uniform, abet with the jacket open, white gloved hands that sat in front of his face, hiding his expression. Covering his eyes were a pair of reflective amber sun glasses, and to round off the whole package of intimidation was his chin strap beard.

It would have the scariest thing that Maya would have ever seen, except for one small detail.

There was three children giggling in the back corner, two girls and a boy around six or seven, playing the Pokemon games on their Gameboys if she saw right, laughing loudly and gesturing wildly with arms and legs as they enjoyed their play time.

They were a rather strange looking bunch too; with a red-haired European girl in a frilly red dress, with her hair wrapped up with ribbon in two tails that fell down her back. The other girl was an albino; judging by her pale skin and red eyes, she wore a pink shirt with a pair of denim short and pink also had blue hair, of all colors, cut in short bob.

The boy was more normal looking by simple comparison, with dark brown hair a slightly tanned complexion that was the norm for Japanese people, he wore a white shirt with blue short and a pair of light up runner that boys his age adored.

He also had the most beautiful blue eyes that she had ever seen.

"They do rather ruin the atmosphere that I was aiming for, but their usual minder is out handling an issue with the JSSDF, so I am stuck minding them for the evening."

Jumping slightly at the sudden voice, she turned to see the slightly smirking face of the Commander, his hands resting on the table, no longer hiding his rather handsome face.

His smirk was swoon worthy, if one were into that kind of thing.

"S-sorry sir!" She sputtered out, her face turning absolutely crimson in shame.

"It is of no consequence, they do tend to be rather distracting when they play"

"NEIN!"

A cry, filled with despair and heart wrenching anguish, cut through the last bit of tension in the room, anguish clear in the girl's voice, even as another rose up in jubilation.

"Especially when Asuka's Charizard is defeated"

Maya giggled behind her hand, the red-head was adorable when she was pouting.

"Shall we begin?" The Commander continued, hands back to there position in front of his face, once more hiding his expression from view.

====#

**NGE: The Good Father.**


	2. Chapter 2

Misato really wanted a drink.

How she had gone from a NERV Commando Squad Leader; to the babysitter of three of the world's most important brats was actually a bit of a mystery to her, but it had happened.

It seemed one moment she was drunk off her ass in some dingy bar in Berlin, looking for a one night stand that would make the world disappear for at least the night, then the next she was in Japan, being told by her superiors that she had been chosen as both the Operations Director of NERV HQ and the Pilot Supervisor.

They had basically handed her two of NERV's most high ranking positions in one go.

As Operations Director she had complete control of all NERV and UN military forces that could be used to intercept and destroy any ADAM based life form with command privileges that were only superseded by the Supreme Commander of NERV and the UN Secretary.

She had access to all of the UN's fleets and armies, as well as their N2 strike capabilities AND their orbital capabilities, at least in theory.

It made her slightly light headed, to think of all the power that she had at her finger tips.

Her other job was more complex, commanding troops and tanks and planes around was something she had spent years training for, it was second nature to her by now. Taking care of the three Children, the future pilots of the Evangelion Units, was in many ways far more important than her job as a commanding officer in NERV.

At the moment Rei was off with the Commander, so that left her in charge of Shinji, the Commander's son and Asuka, the child of one of the designers of an Evangelion from Germany. The worst part of her current job was the fact that both children had lost their mothers recently.

And both of the kids had seen their mothers die..

So Misato was stuck looking after a pair of rather traumatized kids who needed a boat load of therapy, not to be training how to pilot a gigantic cybernetic war machine

But no one ever said tha life was fair, and no matter how much she disliked using the kids as soldiers, there was no other option available.

Sighing, Misato made her way to the Pilots' quarters, a large room that was used by the Children to sleep in when they had to stay late to do a Sync Test. Of course that meant that the kids' basically lived there now days. The room had dividers that separated the kid's beds and gave them a sense of privacy, while at the same time allowing them to be close enough to one another that they could bond in the way that NERV needed them.

It was placed fairly deep in the base, for the protection of the kids, so it took a good while for Misato to actually get there; it took longer than it should have because her sense of direction was terrible, and she got lost at least twice

So she arrived at the kid's room in a foul mood, having taken the better part of an hour to get here and opened the door to see how the kids were holding up.

Her jaw dropped.

She had expected the kids to be in their respective little rooms all sad and moody, an understandable reaction to their situation, she guessed, but Misato hadn't expected this.

The room was a mess, paint of varying colours was splatterd on the floor and on the walls of the dividers, with Asuka's section painted with a hodpoge of reds, yellows and oranges and Shinji's was painted a blue and white, again with different shades.

It all looked like it was done by hand.

"Misato! Do yeah like it, ja?"

The question was asked in heavily accented Japanese, spoken by the six year old Asuka, who was covered up to her elbows, confirming Misato's theory.

The girl's sleves were rolled up and her dress was smattered with paint, her good dress that Misato had spent two hours picking out for her. It was one of those really pretty frilly things that Misato found adorable.

And it was ruined.

She also had the biggest, proudest smile on her face that Misato had ever seen.

Shinji was in a similar state; his good cloths ruined and his smile threatened to split his face in two.

She really didn't know what to do; on one hand they had ruined both the best cloths they had and they had also destroyed their room, though they had only done their one cubicles, having left Rei's alone, most likely so they could have her o her own room.

On the other; this was the first time she had seen the kids smile like this, they had finally bonded with one another, so perhaps it was worth the destruction of $440 worth of clothing.

She stood there for a moment, the kids grinning like fools and her mouth open and gaping like a fool, before she made up her mind.

"Fuck it, how are we doing this guys?" She said as she rolled up her sleeves as she made her way into the room.

==============

He raised a questioning brow.

The Children, all three of them, stood in their quarter along with his Operations Director, all of them grinning like fools and covered with paint.

He could see why.

They had pained each of the kid's cubicles with a different color, Shinji's room was colored a mixture of blues and whites while Asuka's was all reds and oranges.

Rei's was pink.

Really, really pink.

And by the look of the paint, with hand prints and the fact that they all had paint up to their elbows, it was obvious that they had done it all by hand.

He looked at their smiling and laughing faces, the Children happier than they had been in ages with the beaming Misato who bore a striking appearance of a proud mother.

"I should have seen this coming." Was all he said.

"Yeah, you probably should have." Misato answered cheekily.

Gendo just sighed slightly, and turned and left the room.

None of them missed the small smile on his face. 


	3. Chapter 3

Her body ached in places she didn't know about.. A fourteen hour shift a day for two weeks, that was the kind of torture that was required to get the newly arrived, though incomplete, Unit-02 armed and armored up to standard.  
It had taken a lot out of her, and the other command staff, even Commander Ikari was showing signs of stress; some gray in his beard and bags under his eyes.  
Flopping on to her bed in her quarters near the kids own, her thoughts went to the complete cluster fuck that the last two weeks had been.

The Eva had arrived in Japan with only its basic restraint harness attached and none of the advanced armor or any of it's build weapon systems that were supposed to be already equipped on the walking war crime.

It was a slight at NERV-01.

The German branch had never really gotten over the fact that Asuka and her unit had been taken from them and sent here for training with the other Pilots. So in an act of pettiness that would have done Kaji's mother proud they had de-synced the core safety systems and stripped the unit's armor and integrated weapons off and had packed the EVA off with its gear, on a different day later transport, off to Tokyo-3.

The Commander had been _furious_.

A series of long and quietly angry phone calls had been sent and from what Misato had heard in-between the frantic re-armament of their third EVA, was that a lot of the German branch were currently undergoing a series of stringent performance reviews that would test them to their breaking point and beyond.

The feeling of vindictive satisfaction never had the chance to really set in though, getting the red pain in butt cheeks had made sure of that.

It had taken the dicks back in Berlin about four hours to remove the B-Type armor while leaving the basic, and slightly faulty, restraint gear on. It had taken the better part of two weeks to reattach said armor.

Removing the stuff was relatively simple; all you had to do was make sure that the removed pieces didn't fall on anyone, attaching it was a different story.  
The B-Type equipment was the base on which all the other equipment types were placed on, even when using S-Type for flying, most of the B-Type armor stayed attached. So the stuff had to be placed perfectly on the EVA, otherwise you ran the risk of a major systems failing when you needed them most.

So what that had meant was that Misato was stuck overseeing the Project-E Eggheads as the pieced the damn thing back together as fast as they could.

Her role in the rearmament process was far less frantic and far more tedious. She was stuck signing all the various documents that the UN had made up for the Evangelion Units. A massive series of booklets of around 100 pages each, that had to be signed by her and the Commander, and the Head of Project-E, in triplicate.

And then there was Asuka.

The bastards had de-synced the core, Asuka's cerebral data and though patterns, and how they interacted with the EVA, were deleted from the core's crystal memory. Meaning that while Asuka could sync with EVA well enough, the safety features that were in place were rendered both null and void.

If they wanted to use the Unit without the first sign of combat boiling her girl's grey matter like soup, Rits had to re-do the whole Core Sync process from scratch, which had Asuka doing just as much time in HQ as Misato.

The difference being that Asuka was 7 and a half and was stuck inside one of those oversized tampons for those fourteen hours.

The wear was starting to show on the girl, bags under her eye, short temper, all that shit.  
Misato had even found her crying in the bathrooms more than once.  
"_I'll talk to the Commander tomorrow, brat can't take much more of this shit, best give __her __a few days off."_

With that thought in mind, Misato set out to get the first bit of real sleep she had in ages.

The feeling of someone's arms wrapping around her stomach was what woke her.

Waking blearily to the dark of her room, Misato looked down at what person had _dared _to wake her, and was greeted by the most adorable sight she had ever seen.  
It was Asuka, dressed in her shorts and too big yellow tee-shirt that was originally one of Misato's own, with her small arms wrapped her stomach.

It damn near gave her diabetes.

Still, Asuka was seven and the girl wasn't her child, Misato would have to wake her and take her back to her own room.  
Calculating the required time it would take to both wake the girl and get her to sleep in her own bed, Misato made her choice.

"_Fuck it"_

With that in mind she cuddled the girl back and went to sleep.

Twenty minutes later she woke up again, this time when she looked down she saw Shinji and Rei attached to her as well; with Rei sprawled out over her legs and Shinji under her arm, all of them looking exceedingly comfortable.

Once again Misato was faced with a choice and once again Misato said "Fuck it" and snuggled back to sleep with her brats.

WAFF people WAFF. 


	4. Chapter 4

Shinji was nervous, really nervous.

He sat in the metal cylinder uneasily, fidgeted uneasily with the control sticks as he waited for his orders. It was his first time inside an entry plug, and it showed, even after both Ms. Misato and his father had told him what was going to happen inside here, he still couldn't shake the nervous tension that sat in his stomach.

"Shinji?"

"AH!" He screamed, turning around rapidly to try and find where the voice had come from.

"Calm down Shinji, I'm talking to you over the com system build into the EVA, I'm just checking to see how you are doing."

"O-Oh.. I'm fine, father, just nervous. That's all."

"That is to be expected, just remember what you were told and you should be fine." The grave tone of hos father's echoed through the plug.

"Of course father, I'm ready. I'll make mother proud!"

"Good boy." Gendo said with some warmth in his voice. "Insert the LCL!"

The pumps came to life, a foul smelling liquad pouring into the plug and rapidly filled it. Quickly coming up to Shinji's knees. He tried to not panic, he knew what it was, he knew that he could breath in the LCL like it was air, that he was perfectly safe here.

But all the knowledge in the world didn't stop him from screaming as it flowed up to his head.

"AHHHHHH!"

================#

"That could have gone better."

Gendo didn't say anything, he just stared at the ceiling, like he had done for the past fifteen minutes.

"I put him to bed, by the way, he's sleeping with Asuka and Rei at the moment. Took about half an hour of the poor thing crying his eyes out before he finally went to sleep.

"Hmm"

"Asuka isn't too pleased either, you know how protective she can be, so expect a lot of trouble from her for the next few weeks." Misato gave her head a disbelieving shack "I didn't know she could give a person a look like that, it cut right to the soul! And that language... Where in the name of God did a seven year old learn how to swear like that? It just not normal!"

"I believe..." Gendo spoke for the first time in conversation "...that we over estimated the courage of an eight year old. The next live Sync-Test that we perform will be a dummy run, one of us will have go with him to make sure he doesn't panic again."

"Yeah, maybe we should have done that in the first place! For an organization full of geniuses, you'd think we know to take it step by step, instead of rushing it."

"Hmm, it is our genius, our arrogance that led to today's fiasco. We believed ourselves to be so smart, that we overlooked those who are supposed to be our wards. Such a mistake must not happen again, lest we ruin ourselves."

Misato rolled her eyes at his flowery choice in language.

"Yeah, what ever you say Ikari, damn flowery bastard. Still doesn't change the fact that the poor kid isn't going to go back into that coffin without a lot of incentive, and no" She said coley "I'm not letting him get to second base" The smirk on her face could have made a straight woman reconsider her orientation.

Gendo just grumbled and sat up from the bed, the covers falling off to revel his naked form. Stretching, walked over to the lounging form of the equally naked Colonel Katusragi who lay on the ruined sheet, giving him the most glorious bed-room eyes.

"Come, we've a lot of work to do," he said, giving her bottom a sharp 'slap' before he quickly made his way out of the room, away from the indignant Misato.

=======#

He was still crying!

Asuka turned in her bed restlessly, before she grabbed a pillow and covered her face in a vain attempt to block out the sound of Shinji's incessant sobbing.

It didn't work.

He had been crying ever since he had gotten home, about two hours ago, had still was at it! Asuka had it to here with it!

Yelling into the pillow in frustration, Asuka kicked the blankets off, and got out of her plush, European style bed, like she'd sleep in anything else! And stalked out of her own cubicle and towards Shinji's, the pillow still clutched in her hand.

The rooms they had didn't have doors, Asuka had tossed a hissy fit when she first found this out, but the Colonel nor the Commander were budging on the subject, so Asuka had let it lay. But now she wondered with her drowsy mind why they didn't have any doors?

With no answers forth coming, the seven year old continued her advance into Ikari's room. His was colored blue and white, like they had painted it on first few days together, posters of anime character and famous composers covered walls.

In the middle of the room was Shinji's bed, another western style bed, and there lay the boy in question, gentle sobs hitching his chest.

Walking over to the bed and claiming onto it with her pillow in hand, Asuka sat on her knees and stared at the boy.

Shinji had stirred from his sobs by the movement of his bed, turning to look at the intruder.

"A-Asuka... hic!... w-whats wron-Gah!"

Asuka had hit him with her pillow, he hadn't even known that a pillow could hurt!

"Stop crying you big baby!" She yelled, before she pushed the boy back into his bed, and snuggled down with him, pulling the blankets over both of them.

"Just go to sleep, you cry-baby..." She mumbled.

"Ah... Okay..." He said, before he lay back down into bed, sleep quickly over taking him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Four: The life and times of Rei Ayanami:**

==========#

The rubber ducky stared at her, plastic eyes digging into her soul, and she gazed back in contest. Her will verses its own.

Rei Ayanami sits in the bath full of warm and suddy water engages in starring contest with her yellow rubber ducky. It said a lot about the young child that she was reasonably sure that Rei was _winning_ the battle of wills. After about two minutes of just looking at the bath toy, Rei gently took hold of it with her two hands. Holding her arms out awkwardly; Rei gave the rubber ducky a tentative squeeze.

It squeaked loudly; echoing through the bathroom, eliciting a tiny smile on Rei's young face and a barely audible giggle from the two year old who looked like a six year old. She continued to squeeze the ducky, every sound that it made was accompanied by a giggle.

"Enjoying yourself? My little blue-bird." She asked the child from where she stood leaning against the door frame.

"Dr. Akagi!" Rei exclaimed, surprised by the older woman. Before she smiled at her and lifted her yellow toy to show off. " Mr. Ducky! My Friend! He says hi." She said with some excitement. Far too much excitement for just a rubber toy.

"Yes, Mr. Ducky. I am glad to be introduced to such a gentleman!" She said dramatically as she approached the tub, before leaning down and planting a tiny kiss on his rubber bill, which sent Rei onto her back with giggles.

Chuckling a bit; she crouched down beside the bath and rolled up the sleeves of her lap coat, before she fished out a wash cloth from the tub and began to gently scrub the child's pale back as the girl continued to play with her toy.

After about five minutes of back washing, Akagi dropped the cloth back into the tub once more and picked up a bottle of children's shampoo. Squirting a bit of the purple stuff onto her hand, she lathered it up a bit and gently began to rub it into Rei's short hair. Leaning back into her touch, Re closed her eyes and sighed; what ever tension was in her young body seeping out of her.

"Dr. Akagi?" Rei said, eyes still closed.

"Yes, my little blue-bird?" She answered.

"Are you okay? You look upset?" Rei asked, concern in her voice.

Dr. Naoko Akgai stopped her treatment for a fews seconds, before continuing with a sigh. " I am fine, my dear. I have just been under a lot of stress lately, there is no need for you to worry your head over it."

"Are you sure?" Rei asked tentatively, clearly worried.

"Of course my dear, I am fine. Truly" Naoko said, before gently pushing Rei's head under the warm water.

==============#

Cliff hanger!


End file.
